The Imaginary Lives of Mechanical Men (7 page)

“This is great,” Roger insists. “You can see the whole world from up here. Those houses look like mushrooms, don’t they?”

“Is one of them our house?”

“I don’t think so. Our house is probably over—that direction. Sort of that way. Don’t worry, kiddo, all we got to do is find that creek again, right? Then follow the creek.”

“I think it’s going to be dark soon.”

“You worry too much, son. Gotta learn to trust your instincts. Here, watch this. Yo, Rex! Rex! Come on, fella. Come here, boy. Rex! There, good boy. Take us on down to that creek, big fella. Take us on home.”

Rex leads them downward through an arbor of winter jasmine as thick as vine-woven baskets. The sudden familiarity of the place, its quilt of curling leaves and its high canopy, conjure memories in Roger, leaving him momentarily confused, tilting and twirling with his thoughts. Looking up, he sees breaking buds of bright yellow that remind him of fireflies and summer evenings in the backyard of a house that was neither vast nor imposing. He smells hamburgers, hears his father and uncles laughing through crude stories, doing different voices and acting out the parts without even standing up. Remembers and returns to the present, where they hurry on, swishing through the leaves, following the dog in elaborate circles.

It is Wesley who notices the temperature dropping, the gathering darkness. Wesley who finds himself wishing for a trail of bread crumbs or a string to mark the way. Who notices Roger glancing furtively at his watch, and who thinks again of fairy tales.

They help each other over a fallen tree, then climb a small incline to get their bearings once more, and then, shrugging, follow Rex.

But it is Roger who realizes where they have arrived at last, who smells the jasmine and recognizes the dark-woven bower. And who understands that there will be no fireflies, no warm summer breeze. This time they drop down into the humus exhausted. And a familiar feeling, from all those years ago, washes over Roger’s face and gathers in the corners of his eyes. He can’t think of what to do, and perhaps for lack of a better thing he unbuttons the flannel shirt with shaking
hands and wraps the boy in its warmth. “Jesus,” he mutters to no one in particular, “what are we going to do now?”

“Dig,” says Rex. “Dig.”

In the dark of early morning Amy stands in a stinging spray that cannot wash away her fear. Even after she’s wrapped herself in the silk robe, tied the knot with harsh jerks, she cannot stop shivering, like a diver anticipating not the cold plunge itself but the rocks just beneath the surface. So she goes walking, delicately, like a ghost, or like someone afraid of ghosts, to the round portal, where she brushes her hair and looks out upon a thousand shades of black. Afraid that any sudden movement might make her disappear.

A breezy ripple running through the grass reminds her of one summer spent in Scotland. Of Roger, ridiculous, staring out over Loch Ness at late evening, every day for a week, fully expecting something to emerge. And then, of course, losing faith. Thinking then and again now in the dim present, how like him. How like a man. So she brushes with the stiff strong brush, drawing it through her tangles with slow determination, almost welcoming pain. And in the entire house there is only the one light burning.

Until gradually she realizes what has happened.

Always a coward, just strong enough to steal, he’s taken the boy and left.

Downstairs there’ll be a note. The papers will come by Federal Express. Then he’ll make an issue of everything in court, though he doesn’t really want custody. He simply wants the power to bargain. He wants a clean break, a red sports convertible, a blonde girlfriend, an amicable divorce. Anything to make me hurt.

But by God I will keep this house, this one window where I can see with telescopic sight past the fraudulent lights below and the pathetic patterns of all their little lives. So that when she begins to cry, the tears are indistinguishable from droplets trickling off the handle of
a brush held in her shaking hand. And at first she does not hear the sound at all.

There is a faint clicking of toenails across the tile floor below, a phantom movement in the kitchen, shuffling perhaps, which draws her down the stairs like someone already dead. Not even frightened anymore. Not even curious about what form the horror will take this time. Just drawn.

Almost sleepwalking now, with slow determination and only a vague sense of unreality, she turns the corner and flicks on the light, and they whirl from the vicinity of the refrigerator.

“We camped out!” Wesley screams.

They are pale and ragged, hollow eyed, covered with dirt and leaves. Newly dug from some grave.

She gasps, clutches the robe, and backs herself against the wall. They have filthy, hanging hair. Ragged nails and bloody fingers. Roger’s eyes are a maze of broken capillaries, swollen flesh to the temples; his face is a chaos of stubble, scratches, and scrapes.

“I camped out!” he shouts again. “With Dad and Rex all night! We did it! We found the best place in the world and made a hole. And Rex kept us warm. All night!”

“Roger?”

“I don’t know, I need … coffee, something.”

“We told stories! We cuddled up with Rex under the leaves.”

“Dear God. Are you hurt? Are you … are you okay? Look at you. Look at your clothes.”

“I need something, I … a hot bath maybe. Some breakfast.”

Amy drops the brush, begins to undress them, stops to wipe a cut, to pick leaves from Wesley’s hair. Scolds and cries, the back of one hand pressed to her lips. Jerks their filthy clothing away and makes a pile before shooing them upstairs to steaming hot water and antiseptic. She hunts out clean towels and underwear. Pours forth a breathless litany of questions and recriminations. What in God’s name was he trying to prove? Alone with a child, no camping equipment, no precautions of
any sort. When you could have frozen to death. Letting that dog back in the house like this. Ticks and lice. People have died for God’s sake. There has to be a rational explanation. Roger. Roger, what in God’s name were you thinking? What was going on inside your mind?

“Nothing,” he says. “I just … I don’t know.”

She hovers, waiting for an explanation that never comes.

Overturns a flower arrangement on one of her trips down the stairs, looking for clean socks perhaps or fabric softener or something, which falls from her mind as soon as she sees the new thing. It stops her, leaves her breathless one last time, like the magician’s grand finale. And she, like the beautiful assistant, takes it up in her hand and holds forth the wonder. Across the seat of her chair in the kitchen, someone has left her a sprig of winter jasmine, as thin and ragged as honeysuckle, as yellow and bright as a star.

Food Is Fuel

1

In the tale of the Japanese magician, the year is 1939, and the nightclub is a renovated mansion called The Oasis. It’s owned by Robert Hassard. The opening scene has Robert gliding from table to table, greeting his guests like an election-year politician, and it’s a comforting moment. The men are in tuxedos. The women, after they have been undraped, are in a profusion of sequins and ostrich feathers. They glimmer and shine in spite of the freezing rain outside, and soon everyone has been warmed by the orchestra’s own rendition of Tommy Dorsey’s “Little White Lies.” There’s polished brass everywhere you turn. Leaded crystal and white gloves. In fact, the only detail that seems out of place in this part of the story is the one involving the cocktail waitresses. The girls of The Oasis wear tight satin shorts and white satin blouses, and they go wiggling between the tables with a sensuality not ordinarily associated with the thirties. Still, it’s the year of
Gone with the Wind
. Two years since the Hindenburg disaster. And anything seems possible. There are even rumors that Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey are getting back together.

2

The orchestra swings into “Beale Street Blues” just as Robert passes a darkened table in one of the alcoves. It is of course my table, and he
notices me because I am the author and my sudden appearance has given him a start. So naturally Robert hesitates, but at last he extends a soft, unformed hand. “Jack,” he manages to say, “how are you?”

“Fine, Robert. How’s business?”

“Great. Really great. What are you doing here?” Though he knows very well what is happening.

He knows because the young woman with me is roughly half my age—much thinner than she would be in an ordinary story—with a wide, sensuous mouth and dark hair done in a style that Robert has never seen before. She looks altogether too fragile to bear the weight she will be asked to bear over the next few pages, like one of those Polish refugees we keep seeing in the newsreels. Her dark eyes have a distance about them that frightens Robert since he knows I’ve brought her here for sex, as I’ve done in earlier stories, though he himself cannot imagine making love to anything so frail.

“I want you to meet Claire,” I say.

So Robert frowns as usual, takes another step into the darkness, and extends his hand once again. “How do you do, miss. Welcome to The Oasis.”

After they touch and he’s left staring at his palm, I say, “Relax, Robert. Why don’t you tell us what you have on stage tonight.”

“Oh, yeah … yeah. I think you’re going to like this, Jack. It’s a magician. Japanese guy, you know. He does stuff with food. Really outrageous stuff, like he cooks children or something.” Robert laughs twice and looks to see if anyone is noticing our conversation.

“Really?” I take a slow drink and savor the sting before swallowing. Then look out over the crowd for the one face that could change all this. And find nothing. “I don’t know, Robert. I may need to make some changes.”

Then I look at the girl and pat her hand.

3

In reality I am back in the hospital room after a long day of tests, somewhere between “liquids only” and a dawn that doesn’t seem to be imminent. I look across at my daughter, who is about half my age, and the thought that she might have some connection to Claire, however tenuous, makes me nauseated. So I try to redirect my thoughts. The whole thing is unsteady in my mind, and finally I say, “Ann Marie—I have something to give you. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time.”

She straightens in the chair, blinks herself back into the room, and finds a voice that’s husky and slow after hours of almost sleep. She’s pretty and plump, my daughter, like all of those actresses before the war, and I see her the way I see Judy Garland—perfect—in the Land of Oz. She is a sweet girl, innocent of any imagination that could threaten her. “You’ll be home in a couple of days, Pop. You can give it to me then.”

“Maybe not. You never used to call me Pop.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you must think I’m going to die.”

“Well, … Jack, … that’s ridiculous.” She stretches and yawns, then makes a pocket for her feet in the blanket and nestles again into one corner of the chair. “You just have a big day tomorrow, and you should get some sleep. I think we should both get some sleep. It’s two
AM
.”

I push the buttons, and something under the bed whirs, bending me into the shape of a W. “I like this,” I say. “I feel like an astronaut, you know, re-entering the atmosphere or something.”

“It’s two
AM
, Pop. They’re scheduled to operate at six.”

“This won’t take long. Just give me a sip of water. I want to tell you a story. Story about a Japanese magician.”

Without looking at the window, that useless mirror, I already know what is happening outside in the hospital parking lot. I can just tell. I’m that good at imagining this sort of thing. So I’m certain that there
are two security guards, cupping their coffee in both hands, a young woman, and an older man on the sidewalk next to the emergency ramp. And for a reason that I can’t yet articulate, they remind me of characters out of Hemingway—maybe I’ll hit upon it later, the proper allusion—but at the moment, in the resinous present, I know for sure that these two guards go their way tottering like penguins. And I know that there are broad sheets of runoff on the concrete, freezing rain that’s layering itself into transparencies that reflect streetlights into crooked shapes. It’s a monstrous night. And I know that the only other person in the parking lot is a bundled nurse, impatient to get home after her shift, who cannot wait for her car’s defroster to work. And that she reaches one hand to the windshield and scrubs wild circles until—just for an instant—she can see perfectly into my second-floor room. And she thinks, good God, are we ever going to see flowers like that again? And then puts her car into gear. While inside the room itself, I’m mentioning to my daughter that the story of the Japanese magician takes place on a night very much like this one. And she sighs. Just like her mother, for whom she is named.

4

When midnight arrives, the Japanese magician does indeed take the stage and goes through the usual flourishes, except with a difference, a little twist on the conventions. It’s what makes him special. Take the dove trick, for instance, something we think we’ve seen a thousand times. It works like this in the hands of Hadashi, the Japanese magician:

As he draws off his white glove, one finger at a time, he gives it a snap and produces, not the fluttering dove we expect, but a luna moth, which perches on the tip of one finger. He pretends to stroke the creature with his free hand and walks it through the loops and swirls of some imaginary flight while the moth sits serenely, tilting its wings from time to time to keep its balance. Then Hadashi faces us, bows,
and brings his hands together in a single explosive clap. The moth disappears, and in its place there is a paper fan which, when opened, reveals the pale green image of a luna moth. Then, with a flick, the fan is gone, and the real moth reappears, its long swallowtails and delicate kimono wings unwrinkled by the transformation. This time Hadashi tosses it into the air, letting it make a single stuttering circle before alighting again on his finger like a trained animal. I applaud, not because of the magic, but because of the choreography. Hadashi is as graceful as a dancer.